


Memory Lane

by alchemicink



Category: Hey! Say! JUMP
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Introspection, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:22:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21988096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemicink/pseuds/alchemicink
Summary: Yamada walks down memory lane in order to move forward
Relationships: Nakajima Yuto/Yamada Ryosuke
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20
Collections: JUMPing Fic Carnival 2019





	Memory Lane

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pinkblondie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkblondie/gifts).



> Hello pinkblondie, I liked your "soulmates in an idol au" prompt so I tried my hand at that. But I also just continued my tradition of making up my own dumb soulmate AU idea instead of using the usual ones... either way, I hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> A million thanks to my beta for rescuing this fic when it was a mess!

Yamada has gotten pretty good at English over the years. Not because he particularly cares about learning another language but because he hates relying on translations. He wants to be able to read articles right away without waiting, without wondering if words are accidentally getting twisted. 

He holds his phone close to his face, scrolling through Yuto's latest interview. It's pretty much what he expected. A short profile about his most recent album, the usual comments about his music influences, where he draws his inspiration from. Things Yamada has read a million times before in the past three years. 

He tells himself he should stop reading.

But he often finds himself with his phone in his hands, sneaking glimpses at interviews and updates in between his own recording sessions. Reading reports like a teen guiltily browsing a dirty website. Thinking about a million _what-ifs_ that could have been had things turned out differently. 

None of that, however, changes the part of himself that's grown to be proud of Yuto's accomplishments. 

A weird half-screech, half-squawk sound interrupts his thoughts. Startled, Yamada looks up to see a tiny ball of fluff sitting on the windowsill. 

"Oh no," he breathes. "Oh _no_." 

The weird creature looks up at him through his feathery fur, big eyes blinking innocently. It looks like a cross between a fantasy monster and a child's toy. 

Honestly, Yamada had been hoping he'd never be visited by this creature. 

"Ryosuke~! Recording booth is almost ready for you again," Inoo's familiar voice bursts into the room as he barrels inside as usual. Takaki follows behind quickly on his heels. 

"Are you gonna sing the one I picked out?" Takaki asks, just as loudly. 

Yamada doesn't answer them, choosing instead to continue staring at the puffball of doom waiting by the window. 

Inoo gasps when he sees it. 

"Oh my God, it's time." He turns to his partner, insistently tapping Takaki's arm. "Yuya it's time! Our little Ryosuke is gonna go meet his soulmate." 

Takaki's face lights up. "That's so awesome." He pulls out his phone, begins dialing numbers immediately. "I'll start clearing your schedule." 

Yamada just frowns, sure the universe is pulling a cruel prank on him. He's heard the stories all his life. How people meet their soulmates, how the universe sends a creature when it's time to meet that person, how the creature leads them on a "soulmate journey" to that person. 

He's sure it won't lead him to the person he really wants to see. 

Inoo finally notices his reluctance. "Hey, it's not so bad, you know." He nudges Yamada's shoulder. "I was nervous before I started my journey too, but trust me, it all works out in the end." 

"What was it like?" Yamada asks. 

When he hired Inoo as his manager and Takaki as his stylist, they were already together. He never knew them before they'd fallen head over heels in love with each other. Now he couldn't imagine them being separated. They were two halves of a whole package. They built themselves into something better together than apart. 

He can't imagine himself in the same kind of relationship. 

"My journey was just visiting a ton of beaches," Inoo laughs. "It was a lot of fun. I got a weird tan." 

"And how did you feel at the end of it?" Yamada continues. 

"Disappointed the last stop was a person and not another tropical beach," Inoo jokes. 

Takaki pauses in his phone conversation long enough to stick his tongue out at Inoo for his answer. 

"But in all seriousness," Inoo says, "you'll be fine. The universe says it's time for you to meet your soulmate, and the universe is never wrong." 

There's a first time for everything, right? 

"Alright," he sighs as the little creature makes the screechy squawk again. He won't fight this even if he hates it. "I'll go." 

"We'll take care of everything while you're gone. The recording studio will still be here when you get back," Inoo says softly, but then adds with a sudden grin, "those things start biting if you take too long, so you better go." 

Yamada looks warily at its tiny beak, and can't tell if that last part is a joke. 

Either way, it's time for him to stop wallowing in the past. 

***

Yamada walks slowly, weaving through the crowded sidewalk, hat pulled low over his eyes in the hopes a fan won't spot him. The creature keeps throwing impatient glances back at him as it flutters through the air with tiny little wings that look like they shouldn't support its weight. 

It doesn't take long for the little creature to lead him to their first destination: a temple near his agency's recording studio. It's only a couple of blocks away but Yamada hasn't stepped foot on its grounds in three years. 

It's the same as he remembers it. The gardens are neat and clean, and the temple itself still looks as elegant as always. Yuto used to drag him along to walk the winding paths around the temple whenever they needed a breather from their hectic schedules of music performances and magazine shoots and television shows. The quiet atmosphere used to be calming. 

This is the place where Yuto told him he was leaving. 

Yuto, whose hopes and dreams were taking him to America to pursue a career there. 

Across the ocean, jumping several time zones to the other damn side of the world. Abandoning everything he built up in Japan. 

And abandoning him too. 

Yamada remembers the anger, the way it had flared up like a burning inferno. His selfish anger had consumed his whole body until it felt like he was crumbling to ash. They argued about it, right there by the flower garden. Yamada saying ugly words not meant to coexist so close to such beauty. Yuto stubbornly refusing to listen or back down from his plan. 

" _I thought you would support me_ ," Yuto had said, voice low and hurt. 

And that was where their friendship fizzled out. 

Yamada has regrets. He wishes he had done that conversation differently, wishes he had just _listened_. Because looking back now, knowing what he's secretly read and watched over the years, the move was the right thing for Yuto. He's blossomed into something much more beautiful than ever before. 

Yamada can't change the past, and he can't take those words back. 

He stands beside the temple flowers in full bloom, and lets his regrets fall away like wilted petals. 

It's been three years. What's done is done. 

***

The little creature chirps at him to keep up as it leads him forward. He feels like he should pay more attention to the places he's going, so he can learn more about his mysterious soulmate. But his thoughts keep wandering back to Yuto. 

When the creature stops again in front of a dance studio, again he thinks of his old friend. 

The building is familiar, like how all childhood memories are imprinted on the brain and viewed through a veil of nostalgia. He remembers taking his first dance lessons inside, learning how to move his awkward young body more gracefully. Those were his first tentative steps towards his career on stage. 

The creature taps its tiny beak against the glass door, indicating Yamada should go inside. 

He follows, and a smile finds its way to his lips as he walks down the hallway. He loved dancing here. It was where he met so many of his friends: Chinen, Keito, Ryutaro, Shintaro, and...

_Yuto._

He peeks through the doorway to a practice room, class currently in session with several young boys and girls following their routine. They're all focused, too focused to notice their quiet spectator. If he looks hard enough, he can see the ghosts of his past scattered amongst the dance floor. 

Young Yuto ready to take on the world one dance move at a time. 

" _Be my partner_ " Yuto often demanded. 

Yamada always obliged. 

The flying puffball settles onto his shoulder, apparently content to let him stay a few minutes to reminisce. His mind wanders to happier days. The days before he worried about album sales and his skin complexion and memorizing complicated dance routines for concert tours. 

Dance lessons were always fun when Yuto was there. They laughed together at the strange moves taught by the choreographer. They challenged each other to see who could memorize a new routine the fastest. (Chinen always beat them both.) They chatted about life and hopes and dreams in between sessions. 

Sometimes he watches videos of Yuto's performances in America, sees a few familiar dance moves thrown in. He lets the smile sneak onto his face. 

It was this studio where Yamada first found himself thinking about life with Yuto always at his side. Foolish of him to assume that life would remain the same as it was inside their little mirror-plated practice room. 

Yamada glances around the studio, watching as the ghosts dance and dissolve away. 

*** 

The soulmate creature leads him next to a specific curry restaurant he avoids, and he's pretty sure the universe is simply tormenting him, forcing himself to confront his pent-up feelings for his old friend.

He slips into an empty booth inside the restaurant and orders his usual plate of curry even though it's been ages since he's last been here. Nothing has changed: not the menu, not the decorations on the walls, and not the delicious smell of food wafting from the kitchen. 

He scoops a tiny bit of rice and curry towards the tiny creature hopping around on the table. He's not sure it needs to eat, but it makes a happy-ish squeak before it digs into the food. Watching it ravenously consume the curry makes him think of Yuto again. 

A memory of Yuto, young and full of typical teenage angst, sitting across the table from him, shoveling as much food as possible in his mouth in order to avoid speaking. Yamada remembers sitting on the other side of the table simply poking at his own plate. 

They had been tricked into coming to the restaurant by Chinen, who'd gotten tired of watching the two of them be "idiots" by not talking to each other, he'd said. Yamada barely remembers now what they had been angry about to lead to them not speaking. Most likely it had been sparked by jealousy, something both of them struggled with as teens trying to capture the spotlight in their competitive career field. 

One moment you're the golden boy, and the next you're yesterday's old news. 

Neither of them handled that well in those days. Jealousy often simmering into a poisonous rivalry, seeping into their very bones.

Yamada remembers how that particular dinner, unwillingly forced together, helped them patch things up again.

It was a turning point. It got them to have an honest conversation with each other, air out their grievances until they had reached a point of common ground again. Yamada remembers coming back to this restaurant several times afterwards with Yuto in tow. 

" _Good curry is good for the soul_ ," he remembers Yuto used to say before digging into his plate with ravenous enthusiasm. 

Yamada sighs, slowly finishing up the last of the food on his plate. The little creature flaps its wings as it hovers around him, impatiently trying to usher him back outside. 

He doesn't have time for a second plate, and apparently not for second chances either. 

***

He follows the creature down the streets of Tokyo, taking in the sights and sounds of the people and places he passes. He walks slowly, in no hurry to reach his next destination. 

He's still afraid of what he'll find at the end. Who will be waiting for him? 

He still desperately wants it to be Yuto, has wanted that almost from the moment they met. But their paths diverged and he never tried to get them back on track. 

Deep down, he knows they wouldn't have been good together back then. The Yamada of three years ago was too selfish, the Yuto too stubborn. They would have eventually torn each other apart with resentment. 

Yamada pauses in his walk, glancing briefly down a hill at a shopping district below. A scenic shot if he had any photography skills. But the people down there wouldn't pause for a photo. They'd just keep moving forward on their own paths, living their own lives. 

Yamada has been trying his best to do that too. 

He feels like a different person now, better even. 

Maybe.

The park he's led to is the first place that doesn't look familiar, no memories of the past hovering around every corner. The creature chirps happily as it flies under park benches and around tree branches. Yamada guesses he must be close to the end because the creature seems to be full of excited energy. 

Yamada's heart catches in his throat, the anticipation capturing his breath. 

His soulmate creature suddenly lets out a loud squawk as it flies forward. He looks up to see it charging towards an identical creature full of just as much excited energy. 

And then his eyes fall on the figure standing by the playground. 

_Yuto._

This journey isn't a goodbye after all. It's a new beginning. 

He looks just like he had in the most recent magazine shoot Yamada had seen, but somehow different than the last time they'd seen each other in person. 

"It's you," he breathes, disbelieving. "It's really you." 

"I've missed you," Yuto says, stepping forward to pull Yamada into a hug. His arms wrap around him tightly, like he's afraid Yamada might just disappear if he lets go. 

"I _knew_ it was you," Yuto continues, softly. 

Yamada laughs, still not entirely sure he isn't dreaming. "I thought the universe was telling me to let you go, but it was leading me to you the whole time." 

Yamada takes a step back to look up at Yuto's face, to commit every detail to memory. All the parts that look the same and all the parts that are different now. The hurt and anger are long gone, replaced by joy and contentment. 

"I'm back," Yuto says. 

"Welcome home," Yamada whispers, not letting the tears suddenly springing forth ruin the smile on his face. 

Later, Yamada will reflect on their reunion more. He'll think about timing and second chances and maybe how the two of them needed their own solo journeys before they were ready to be together. He'll think about how he needed to let go of the old past in order to move forward with his new future. He'll think about going forward sharing stages and songs and _life_.

But in the moment, he just focuses on how things finally feel right.


End file.
